


Chandelier

by Starlightify



Series: repairing the world [16]
Category: DCU
Genre: Autism, F/F, F/M, Multi, Polyamory, Pre-Relationship, Trans Character, misuse of party decorations, neurodivergent character, welcome to polyshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:58:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7782451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlightify/pseuds/Starlightify
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lois Lane meets Selina Kyle at one of Bruce Wayne's parties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chandelier

**Author's Note:**

> And now the rest of the love square-that-is-diagonally-bisected falls into place.

Benefits of Bruce Wayne owning the Daily Planet: No risk of Luthor driving them out of business, better health care and other employee benefits, not having to live in fear of the office coffee machine breaking down since they can now afford to replace it immediately.

Downsides of Bruce Wayne owning the Daily Planet: Getting specifically, personally invited to cover one of his Metropolis charity events.

Lois could, technically, have turned the invitation down. But she’s just come off covering a pretty intense triple homicide, and Perry _strongly suggested_ she just take the damn puff piece before she worked herself to death. Lois is of the mind that if she hasn’t worked herself to death yet, it’s not going to happen, but she also knows that ignoring _this_ puff piece will just make Perry drown her in puff pieces until she finally picks one to get him off her back.

So she found an image of a dress that was in style and wasn’t too heinous, had Clark make it with the replicator from his ship (because she’ll be damned if she blows three months of pay on a dress when she can just take advantage of her alien boyfriend’s alien technology), and steeled herself for a night of tiny crackers and trite small talk.

Which is exactly what she’s been dealing with.

In fairness, the decor is absolutely gorgeous. This _is_ one of Bruce’s parties, so every detail is perfect. The icicles dripping from the staircases look so real Lois has to touch them to be sure they aren’t, the greenery is artfully arranged, and the light from a thousand tiny candles flickers and reflects in a way that’s flattering to both the space and the guests. But that’s about all Lois can say in favor of the party. She’s never really been a fan of social events, and especially not social events where she hardly knows anyone. Personally, anyway. She knows plenty of these people from various news stories featuring their businesses, but very few of those stories were flattering.

Despite the personal invitation, Lois didn’t really expect to be able to spend much time with Bruce - he’s doing the host thing, getting elites to contribute to his latest cause (a joint boost for arts programs in Gotham and Metropolis). But she hoped, maybe, that she’d be able to find someone whose company is… tolerable. ‘Enjoyable’ is too much to hope for at this point. She feels awkward around the models, though that’s not their fault. Either incredibly bored or incandescently angry around the CEOs, which _is_ their fault. Lost and irritated around the arts folks, which is also their fault. That doesn’t leave her many options for company.

“I will bet you anything you want that I can throw this holly berry directly into that man’s toupee,” someone whispers in Lois’s ear.

She does not scream. She does not jump. A journalist who follows the kind of stories that she does either loses her startle reflex or loses her leads. But that is not to say that Lois isn’t surprised, frightened, and very annoyed. She was pretty high-strung even before kidnapping became a regular part of her life, and now, well. Being snuck up on does not do good things for her heartrate. Especially being snuck up on by strangers. Lois tries not to hyperventilate and turns around to confirm that she does not know this person and make sure she doesn’t actually _need_ to start screaming.

They’re very tall, whoever they are. They’re wearing flats and they’re at least as tall as Clark. Their dress is slinky, black, made of some kind of fabric that looks like it would be incredibly soft to the touch, with a neckline that accentuates their collarbones. Their hair is short and jet black, with very evident curls. Their skin is a rich mahogany. It’s several shades darker than Bruce’s or Clark’s, Lois notes almost absently.

They also have a slightly wicked looking smile, which suits their full, angular lips. “Did I startle you?” they ask.

“No more than any other stranger would have if they snuck up on me,” Lois says. Which might be rude. She’s not inclined to care. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Selina Kyle. Bruce told me you could use some company.” Selina extends a hand. They’re wearing thin gold rings on their pinky and middle fingers.

Lois takes Selina’s hand and gives it a few shakes. “If Bruce sent you over here for me, I guess that means you know who I am.”

“Pretend I don’t,” Selina says.

 _Why?_ Lois doesn’t ask, because if Bruce sent Selina over specifically to keep her company, then Bruce must think they might get on. Lois is willing to play along to see why that might be. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet. She, her, hers pronouns.”

Selina’s smile gets wider. “She, her, hers pronouns for me, too. So. Will you take my bet?”

“Hm.” Lois considers it. “Which man’s toupee? It’s not like there’s a shortage of men with hairpieces in here.”

Selina snorts, then points to someone across the room. “There. Gerald Durdrich. The one who looks like he’s stitched together the hides of a whole family of mice to make that monstrosity he’s trying to pass off as his hair.”

This time Lois snorts. “I’ll take that bet.”

“Name your terms.”

“Loser gets an ice cube down the back of her dress,” Lois says, after a moment’s thought. Safe. Not too unpleasant. Nothing that will result in harm or property damage. She prefers her risk-taking to come with a story attached.

“Deal.” Selina eyes Durdrich, cants her hand back, and then flings the holly berry with a movement almost too quick to follow. Lois tracks the berry’s flight across the room. It arcs beautifully and strikes Durdrich directly in the head. He starts, looks around, then goes back to his conversation. 

Lois has to admit, she’s impressed.

Selina smirks. “Get yourself an ice cube, Miss Lane.”

“Double or nothing,” Lois says impulsively. She’s reconsidering the relative unpleasantness of putting an ice cube down the back of her dress in mid-December. And she thinks she knows a way to turn things in her favor.

Selina raises her eyebrows. “Oh?”

“I bet you can’t throw a holly berry and hit Bruce Wayne.”

Selina’s eyes go wide. She presses her fingers to her lips, and her shoulders shiver with barely-contained laughter. “Miss Lane,” she says when she’s gotten herself under control, “I like the way you think. I’ll take that bet.”

Selina plucks another berry off the nearest holly spring. Bruce is talking to someone, a delicate blond in a crimson dress. He’s farther away that Durdrich was.

Selina lines up the shot. Throws.

The berry sails through the air, and right when Lois estimates it should hit, Bruce’s left hand snaps up and folds like he caught something. He looks, unerringly, straight at Lois and Selina. Then he very deliberately squeezes his fist and opens it to show them the red stain.

“Do you think that counts as hitting him?” Selina whispers, and Lois shakes her head.

“He intercepted it. That’s not hitting him.”

“Drat. I was thinking the same thing.”

“Get yourself two ice cubes, Miss Kyle,” Lois says, doing a passable imitation of Selina’s earlier tone.

~x~

In Selina’s company, the party goes much faster. Lois gets her sound bites and catches a few hints of _real_ stories to pursue, and spends the rest of the time talking with Selina. She has a sharp tongue, a biting sense of humor, and Lois is so gay it’s not even funny. She’s in deep. Clark is going to laugh at her. This is what she gets for making fun of him for talking about how pretty Batman is.

As the event winds down, Bruce manages to extricate himself from a knot of departing guests and makes his way over to the corner table that Selina and Lois claimed as their own around halfway through the night.

“We’re not sorry about the berry,” Lois says before Bruce can get a word in. Selina just smiles, swirling her drink elegantly.

“Good. That was the most interesting part of this whole event,” Bruce says. “I apologize for not being able to join you earlier - but I get the feeling that you were having much more fun than I was.”

“We managed,” Selina says. Lois snorts.

“Lois,” Bruce says, and damn if that gorgeous voice doesn’t bring back all kinds of memories, “I wanted to offer you another apology. For inviting you to this event in the first place.”

Lois raises an eyebrow. “If you thought it was something you were going to have to apologize for, why’d you do it?”

Bruce smiles at her. It’s one of his media smiles, not a real smile, though there’s something genuine about the way the corners of his eyes crinkle. “I needed someone to cover this event, and who better than my newspaper’s finest reporter?”

“Cute. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s your business,” Lois says. Selina makes a quiet ‘ooh’ noise.

“She’s got you pegged, Brucie,” Selina says.

“Actually, our relationship never went that far,” Bruce says, and Lois chokes on her drink. Bruce pats her on the back fondly. “I left my favorite toys back in Gotham, you see. Terribly shortsighted of me.”

“You’ve never done a shortsighted thing in your damn life,” Selina says.

“You’d be surprised.”

Lois feels, abruptly, like there is another conversation happening here, one that she cannot begin to understand. She doesn’t like it. At all. And not just because of the heavy implication that Selina and Bruce have a _history_ , a history that might have continued into the present and possibly will continue on into the future, one that Lois is not and will never be a part of. “I would thank you for sending Selina over to keep me company,” Lois says, drawing their attention back to herself, “but I think you owed me for inviting me here in the first place.”

Bruce shrugs. “That seems fair.”

~x~

“What do you know about Selina Kyle?” Lois asks Clark the moment he picks up.

“Are you driving?” he asks. “I feel really uncomfortable about you calling me when you drive.”

“It was either call you while I drive or look her up on Google while I drive, so I think you’ll agree I’ve chosen the safer of those two options.”

“Yikes. What’s got you all riled up?”

What doesn’t. “Do you know anything about Selina Kyle?” Lois repeats.

“I know that she has apparently done something to piss you off and should therefore be running for the hills, but other than that, nothing. Hold on, let me get on Google.” There’s a rustling sound, underscored by the faint whistle of Clark’s breath. “Okay, Selina - do you know how she spells it?”

“This was a grown-up party, Clark. We weren’t wearing nametags.”

“Wow, she really pissed you off. Okay, best guess - huh. Well.”

“What?” Lois demands.

“She’s so your type.”

“I do not have a type,” Lois says.

“Lois, you have a type.”

“I do not.”

“Okay. But if you did, she would be it. Now I see what this is about.”

“You know nothing.” This is not because she finds Selina attractive and wants to know what her romantic life is like. This is not because she’s jealous of Selina, or of Bruce. This is because every finely-honed journalistic instinct is screaming at her that there’s _something_ going on with those two, and given what Lois knows about Bruce, it’s practically guaranteed to be fascinating. But if Clark wants to be a putz, he can just go right ahead and do that. The jerk.

(It might be a little bit jealousy and a lot bit interest in Selina’s romantic life, but that doesn’t mean Clark has to be so smug about it.)

“Sure thing. Okay, Selina Kyle - orphaned, multimillionaire, her wealth came primarily from investments - is it just me or does that sound kind of fake? - very into wildlife conservation and animal welfare in general - holy-!”

“What?” Lois says.

“There are pictures of her cats. They’re _adorable_.”

She should have known. Clark gets a very specific tone when he sees a cute animal. “Anything else?”

“She’s bisexual.”

“Anything else that could be relevant to, say, a not fake-sounding source for her multimillions?” Lois asks. “Or even her association with Bruce Wayne?”

“Beats me about the money. She and Bruce have been seen together a few times, there’s the usual dating rumors that spring up whenever a guy is remotely friendly with a woman, but usually when Bruce Wayne actually dates someone he’s pretty public about it.”

“I remember,” Lois says. Ugh. The cameras. ‘Bruce Wayne exists, dates woman’ is not even in the realm of real news, but for some reason there were people actually writing about it. Are still people actually writing about it. All the time, as a matter of fact. Sometimes she e-mails Bruce the particularly outrageous articles, just in case he hasn’t seen them.

She would e-mail him the outrageous Batman articles she finds, too, but she thinks that would be pushing it. Secret identities. Potential surveillance. All that jazz. She sticks with e-mailing the Batman articles to Clark and hoping they get passed along.

“Nothing’s coming up.” Clark pauses, then says, in a thoughtful tone, “You know, you could ask him. Or her. I feel like they’d be more qualified to answer your questions.”

“I get the feeling that Selina answers questions as straightforwardly as Bruce does.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Mm.”

Lois is going to figure this out. She just needs time.

**Author's Note:**

> Lois Lane's type, by the way, is "tall people with curly black hair and secret identities who are into Bruce Wayne." It's a very specific type. Lucky her, she managed to find three people who fit the bill.


End file.
